One of the most common things that will be said the next couple of days is that this is a new season.
As college basketball teams lose, they will quit saying that.
It is true that conference tournaments are the last chance for many teams to make the NCAA Tournament. In the end, most conferences will get one team in, and the other 10 or so leagues will share the remaining 36 spots.
Look for the big winner to be the Big Ten with 10 teams making the field of 68.
Don't look for any of them to be in the Final Four.
The Big East will get six or seven of its 10 members in, and the team to watch that might advance the furthest in the NCAA Tournament is Villanova, which had an impressive 9-3 road record.
The conference making the most headlines right now is the Pac-12. Many experts are predicting seven teams will dance.
The last few years haven't been kind to the Pac-12, but that doesn't mean it's pity time for UCLA.
The Bruins have a NET ranking of 75 and got the majority of their victories against conference opponents. Against nonconference teams, UCLA was 7-6.
They lost to North Carolina, which uncharacteristically tied for last in the ACC, and to Cal State Fullerton of the Big West.
If they get in and Mississippi State or the University of Arkansas don't just because the Bruins finished second in their league, then the system failed.
The way most bracketologists see it now, the SEC has only four teams that would secure at-large bids.
Of course, SEC champion Kentucky is one of them, followed by Auburn and LSU, which tied for second. Most likely Florida, which tied with Mississippi State for fourth, also will hear its name on Selection Sunday.
The Bulldogs have the better overall record but a NET ranking of 50. The Gators have a NET of 28.
MSU won the tiebreaker and got a two-game bye as the fourth seed. The Bulldogs will play Florida or the winner of Georgia-Ole Miss in the quarterfinals.
Where does this leave Arkansas, which has the fifth-best NET ranking in the SEC at 47?
The Razorbacks play Vanderbilt on Wednesday for the right to face South Carolina on Thursday. Win a second game, and LSU is waiting. Auburn and Kentucky loom as potential foes for the semifinals and finals, respectively, if Arkansas can go on a run.
If that sounds difficult, it's because it is.
The Razorbacks lost to South Carolina at home, split with LSU, and lost to Auburn and Kentucky in Walton Arena.
At this point, the NIT sounds pretty good, but that isn't guaranteed either.
The Hogs do have a solid NET ranking, but they finished tied with Missouri for 10th in the SEC, but the Tigers had the tiebreaker that moved them to a Thursday game.
The Razorbacks also finished behind Mississippi State, which beat them twice; South Carolina, which beat them once; and Tennessee and Texas A&M, which split with them.
Some of the Hogs' chances for reaching the NIT hinge on the 22 or so one-team leagues. Every time a regular-season champion loses in its conference tournament, it automatically moves into a spot in the NIT.
All of this doesn't mean that if the Hogs won three games in the SEC Tournament they couldn't edge their way back onto the bubble.
Some teams in the Pac-12 are going to falter, and maybe others.
If it doesn't happen, then the Hogs might be on the NIT radar because of their NET. For a team that had to have two transfers to have enough players to practice, that wouldn't be bad.
Sports on 03/10/2020